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Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

kevin-custer.com

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Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#21

Post by elagost »

pmontra wrote: post #17

If gnome-3-34-1804 and gtk-common-themes are a snap, what happens when we remove them? I expect to be able to install them using apt but I went to https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/focal/ and I couldn't find them. So "a snap-free Ubuntu" seems to be a really a different kind of Ubuntu. (Unless there are also other versions of Gnome in 20.04.)

These are resources/dependencies for other snaps. The .deb packages for Gnome and your GTK themes stick around. You can safely remove the snaps and not see any real noticeable difference.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#22

Post by psanford »

I really like the idea of snaps. I really don't like a lot of the execution decisions around them.

Snaps break debain's stable release model. They allow upstream to ship updates outside of the normal 6 month ubuntu releases. There are times when you might want this, but it should be opt in not mandatory. I thinking specifically of lxd which is only shipped via snaps.

The snap store's trust model is confusing. Its hard to tell who is making the packages and how they are sandboxed. If I'm going to install a proprietary piece of software I want to know exactly what it can and can't do. Lately I've been using firejail when I need to run things like this.

And now for a minor complaint that also feels most user hostile to me: why do the snap developers think its ok to require a non hidden directory in $HOME? Seriously my home directory is MINE, if you have to store application state there at least have the decency to do it in a hidden directory.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#23

Post by SahAssar »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #7
lainga wrote: post #2

Does Canonical have any 'push' motive for reducing dependence on apt? Or do they really just like snaps?

Snaps have benefits. Canonical sells 5 year service subscriptions in addition to the 5 years they already offer for free on LTS. Snaps enable a way to get the latest VSCode and other apps on very old versions of Ubuntu. Snaps allowed me to try out Debian and Fedora with minimal issues and easily integrate them into my dotfile manager with Ansible.

That works with Flatpak/AppImage too though, right? For me Snap has always had that Canonical smell of not-invented-here, just like Mir, Unity and Upstart. All of those were eventually replaced with what a majority of similar linux distros settled on. I'm not saying it was wasted development or that nothing was learned but ultimately they joined the rest of the ecosystem instead of the ecosystem joining them.

It seems that canonical does best when they embrace the ecosystem and not try to replace it.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#25

Post by adito »

flatiron wrote: post #19
pixelmonkey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they just realized it gives them a way to package proprietary apps like Skype, Spotify, and Slack a bit more simply than would be required to apt-ify/dpkg-ify them. I really think that's the primary motivation.

I like the way arch does it. They have AUR and everything is there and they can just say they don’t support it.

I think ubuntu also has similar stuff via PPA repository?

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#26

Post by Wowfunhappy »

psanford wrote: post #22

I really like the idea of snaps. I really don't like a lot of the execution decisions around them. Snaps break debain's stable release model. They allow upstream to ship updates outside of the normal 6 month ubuntu releases. There are times when you might want this, but it should be opt in not mandatory. I thinking specifically of lxd which is only shipped via snaps. The snap store's trust model is confusing. Its har…

I've always liked OS X's concept of the Library folder, particularly back in Snow Leopard when it wasn't hidden by default.

Applications need a place to save state, and you don't really want it to be hidden, because sometimes I as a user do need to change it manually for any number of obscure reasons. So you make a subfolder that's designated for apps to write to.

There's no good way to put this into the existing Linux model though. All you'd do is add yet another standard a la https://xkcd.com/927/

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#27

Post by readwind »

flatiron wrote: post #19
pixelmonkey wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they just realized it gives them a way to package proprietary apps like Skype, Spotify, and Slack a bit more simply than would be required to apt-ify/dpkg-ify them. I really think that's the primary motivation.

I like the way arch does it. They have AUR and everything is there and they can just say they don’t support it.

Happy Arch and AUR user chiming in, a custody, or emigrant, from the F snap hell Ubuntu caused, and it's easy to verify and vet AUR content, if you care enough, the scripts are legible, readable, so it's just a matter of caring about your system. I agree, I am so happy about the Arch system since Ubuntu bit, ate wholehartedly, the snap bullshit. Thank fuck for AUR.

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#28

Post by aunetx »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #5

Interesting but it raises the question of what the effects of removing those snap packages are? I note that he doesn't mention installing anything to replace them, so it's probably not serious but still...

Those snaps are just, if I remember correctly, the dependencies for snap-store So removing all of this only removes the snap store, which you don't need anymore ;)

Re: Disabling Snaps in Ubuntu 20.04

#30

Post by teraflop »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #15
jaytaylor wrote: post #6

Kudos to the OP, I'm glad this got posted on hacker news because Snap is so ridiculously broken. Since 16.04, Snaps have been a huge pain for me with running LXC in production environments. By default, Snap applies updates and restarts Systemd services anytime it likes, and there's no way to turn this behavior off! The only way to get around it is to download the Snap package binary and install that directly. Then Sn…

Ugh, is it still impossible to disable Snap autoupdates? Even if people should be updating regularly, forcing them feels completely antithetical to the Linux ethos of users having control over their devices.

Props to Microsoft, for getting their approach to Windows updates adopted as an industry standard! /s
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